The 1991 Science paper by Friis-Christensen & Lassen, work by Henrik Svensmark (Physical Review Letters), and calculations done by Scafetta & West (in the journals Geophysical Research Letters, Journal of Geophysical Research, and Physics Today) have inspired the idea that the recent warming is due to changes in the sun, rather than greenhouse gases.

We have discussed these papers before here on RealClimate (here, here, and here), and I think it’s fair to say that these studies have been fairly influential one way or the other. But has anybody ever seen the details of the methods used, or the data? I believe that a full disclosure of their codes and data would really boost the confidence in their work, if they were sound. So if they believe so strongly that their work is solid, why not more transparency?